Month: December 2012
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Time to reflect on the year gone by, and to toast the old and the new. These bubbles are being poured by Mrs H’s cousin Hermann at the Weingut Pleitz Rotenfelser Hof in Traisen. Great welcome, great wines, great people.

The construction of the New Lynn Railway Station and Bus Interchange was accompanied by extensive landscaping. Native Nikau palms were planted, creating a tropical feel. Sometimes these plants can look a bit scruffy, like in this example, but they will shed the old leaves and look like new.

The rust-clad building is part of the Merchant Quarter development, probably a parking building. An apartment tower is planned to go on top, and apartments are being pre-sold now.

Little Black Shags (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris) often appear in flocks of from two to maybe 100 birds. When they are fishing in small groups, they often dive in a synchronized way. The two birds in the picture were in a group of about eight, and on a particular dive the front one emerged with a catch, causing a hot pursuit by the remaining lot.

In the 1870’s a lamp post with three gas lights was erected in the middle of the intersection of Ponsonby, Jervois, College Hill and St Marys roads. And the area became known as “Three Lamps”. In the 1930’s, the 11 meters high pole was moved to the corner by what was later to become the Gluepot (a pub), but soon that disappeared, and three lamps were placed on the verandah of the hotel, above the footpath. The name lives on, and is still current in shop names, and another reincarnation of three lamps is found inside the Three Lamps Plaza.

In August of this year, a replica of the old tall lamp post was erected again, next to the former Gluepot. For more of the history, see an article in the Aucklander.